Less of a Coward
by kaahiescheck
Summary: "We were nose to nose. 'You want me to say something? How do you think I felt when I came back and tried to help with the quest, and you were yelling at me all the time' 'Well, how do you think I felt,' she argued. 'When you decided to bring her along'" Or how the conversation would've gone if Percy insisted when Annabeth called him a coward in The Last Olympian.


_Rip_. "What do you want me to say?"

The tetherball was swaying gently in the wind, which meant that was the beginners' ball – lighter and easier to work with. A golden curl from Annabeth's hair had escaped her ponytail and danced in the wind in a similar way. It hit her left eye and she blinked, annoyed at it. Or maybe she was just annoyed in general. Or at me.

"I'm not sure," I answered. "You're the best strategist I know. If you were Kronos planning this war, what would you do next?"

"I'd use Typhon as a distraction. Then I'd hit Olympus directly, while the gods were in the West."

"Just like Rachel's picture."

"Percy," she still wasn't looking at me, and her voice sounded pained. "Rachel is just a mortal."

I knew I was only asking for trouble, but I had to insist. "But what if her dream is true? Those other Titans – they said Olympus would be destroyed in a matter of days. They said they had plenty of other challenges. And what's with that picture of Luke as a kid –"

"We'll just have to be ready."

"How? Look at our camp. We can't even stop fighting each other. And I'm supposed to get my stupid soul reaped."

With a quick move, Annabeth threw the pieces of the scroll on the floor. She spoke with anger and pain. "I knew we shouldn't have shown you the prophecy. All it did was scare you. You run away from things when you're scared."

I felt like I'd been hit with a sack of flour. " _Me_? Run away?"

Annabeth took a step forward and got right in my face. From so close, I could see her eyes had got bloodshot and watery, and I could smell her lemon shampoo. She poked my chest, "Yes, you. You're a coward, Percy Jackson!"

The look in her eyes as she said that, though… it gave me pause. I had a strange sense of _déjà vu_ , although I couldn't place where I would have seen her so hurt and angry before. Her gray irises told me too many things at once, and I couldn't understand properly any of them.

"If you don't like our chances, maybe you should go on that vacation with Rachel."

I huffed. "Annabeth –"

"If you don't like our company."

"That's not fair!"

With a push to my shoulder, she walked past me, storming away. Her hand raised and she hit the tetherball, almost yanking it out of the pole by the sheer force she put in the gesture.

Then it clicked. She'd looked at me like that the year before, when I'd just returned from Ogygia and was telling her and Chiron about how we needed Rachel to guide us through the Labyrinth. She'd been mad at me, claiming it was her quest, and (when I'd insisted) had told me I was the single most annoying person she'd ever met before storming away. Much like how she'd done just now.

" _She will calm down," Chiron promised. "She's jealous, my boy."_

And I knew Annabeth well enough, from behavior pattern, to know where this fight would go. Nowhere.

"Hey!" I called after her, jogging to catch up.

She walked faster.

" _Hey_ ," I took off running and rounded her, stopping in front of her, but Annabeth merely changed course. I threw Chiron's reports on the floor and grabbed her wrist, forcing her to pay attention to me. "Hey, you don't get to say stuff like that, like you're all superior, and then walk away! That's not fair."

Annabeth yanked her wrist, but I held it firmly. She wouldn't meet my eyes – still, I could tell hers were even redder. She struggled to get away. "Percy, let me go."

"You're calling _me_ a coward?" I continued, glaring right back at her. "Well, _I'm_ not the one running from arguments all the time! You never let me finish talking before you're storming away again."

She scoffed. "If you ever actually _said_ something relevant –"

"Ex _cuse me_?"

She managed to pull her wrist free. Before she could set off running again, though, I grabbed her arm. I regretted it a second later, when her eyes flashed with hurt and tears, and I realized what I was doing. I released her quickly and took a step back. "S-sorry, I didn't mean to…" I ran a hand over my face. "Just please don't… don't leave like this, okay? And don't put words in my mouth. Of _course_ I think we should fight."

Annabeth raised her eyebrows and said sarcastically, "You sounded so hopeful."

"I just _meant_ that it might be a distraction. And just because Rachel's mortal, that – that doesn't mean we should just ignore what she saw like it's meaningless. How would you feel if we sat here and did nothing while another threat reached Olympus?"

She opened her mouth, but I was in a roll.

"You know, I almost didn't come to talk to you about it, because I knew you'd react like this. I feel like I can't talk to you anymore, Annabeth. You always blow up at me!" I was slowly walking closer to her again. "I always have to wrack my brain trying to understand what you're thinking. You…" _You closed yourself off from me, and it hurts._ "You just…" I threw my hands up in frustration. "You're impossible!"

"Well, you're not so peachy yourself," she stepped up. "While we're all here, preparing for the war and being worried sick, you're… you're planning a _vacation_ with _Rachel_ and I'm planning a _war_ and –"

"Oh, I'm sorry if I wanted to feel like a normal person for once before my imminent death!"

"Then by all means, go!" A tear escaped her eye as she shouted at me. "We've been doing just fine without you! Go to your trip to the Bahamas or whatever with your mortal girlfriend while we stay here and fight to save our lives!"

Her voice was cracking by the end of the sentence, and suddenly I noticed how much of a scene we were making. The volleyball court and the Big House were not far away, and I could see a couple of campers and dryads who had stopped their activities to watch us.

I tried to ignore all that, but I did lower my voice back to normal. "Because that's the sort of cowardly thing I'd do?" I asked coldly. "Yeah, why don't I just disappear from the world and let Nico take the fall, huh? Oh, wait, maybe because I claimed that damn prophecy as my own."

"And now you're running away from it."

I inhaled deeply and glanced at the skies for help. We both knew we were skirting around the real issue here, and none of us had the guts to say it out loud. I tried to keep my voice level. "I had the chance to escape the prophecy. I –"

"In Ogygia, right?" The name seemed to come out ripping her throat. "You could have stayed there forever with a beautiful goddess who was head over heels with you –"

"But I didn't!" I interrupted, not even bothering to ask how she knew I'd been on the island. "I came back as soon as I could walk properly again!" _I came back for you_. "And you talk about it as if it's _my_ fault!"

She swallowed a sob. "I thought you were dead!"

I took a sharp breath. We were going in circles. I closed my eyes for a moment, readying myself, and then I opened them, taking a last step toward Annabeth and facing her right on. I realized it was easier to fight an army of monsters than to open up to her. She was so close, I couldn't stand it. I could see every eyelash, every pore of her skin. Her eyes reflected the green color of mine.

I had the urge to retreat, but I fought it.

"Why d'you kiss me?" I said in a low voice, so only she could hear.

Annabeth's gasp was almost too silent to catch. I could tell her hands were shaking, but that was okay, because mine were too. She averted her eyes.

"We never talked about it," I went on, trying my hardest to keep my voice steady. My throat felt dry. "We just pretended it never happened."

"Percy…" Annabeth started to turn away, but I took a step to the side and faced her again. She wanted me not to be a coward? Then that's what she would get.

She closed her eyes. "This isn't the time for this. People are –"

"I think it's the perfect time."

"My gods, you are so _annoying_!" she glared at me.

"And you're so stubborn!" We were nose to nose. "You want me to say something? Here you go. How do you think I felt about that? When I come back and try to help with the quest, and you're yelling at me all the time. And what did you do when I tried to talk to you before I left camp? You walked away!"

"Well, how do you think _I_ felt?" she argued. "When you decided to bring her along?"

"I wouldn't know. You were too busy jabbing at her at every –"

"So now it's all my fault?"

"I can't read your damn mind!"

The words echoed in my head, but they might as well have literally created an echo if we weren't outside. So much for my effort of talking low. Our voices had escalated during the argument; still, no one had dared come close. I was sure Chiron would show up at any time now, though.

I sighed, trying to steady myself. Annabeth was crying, but she kept her head turned to the side and to the ground so I wouldn't see it as much. I hated making her cry. It felt like a knife making its way into my heart and twisting every time she let out a silent sob.

"We're losing friends almost every day," I spoke. "You think I don't know how hard it is for everyone here at camp? How hard it is for you? I know everyone here looks up to you, waiting for an answer, expecting you to know everything. And you know I can relate to that." She quickly glanced at me before looking away again. "I didn't mean to leave you to it. I just…" It was hard finding the right words. "I just felt like I'd explode if I didn't allow myself to breathe a bit before… before it started for real."

She still wouldn't look at me.

"Look, Beckendorf gave his life so I could escape the ship. It won't be in vain. I would never run away now."

Silence.

I started losing my patience again. "We're facing the end of our lives here, Annabeth. I can't keep on trying to _guess_ what you –"

"The prophecy might mean something else," she whispered.

"Yes, well, I can't afford to think like that."

"I just don't want you to die, okay?" Annabeth crossed her arms and brought her eyes to me.

I raised my eyebrows. "So you… you push me away?"

With a sniff, she shrugged. "I keep telling myself… I…" She shook her head. "How can you be so calm? This – Your birthday's in a few days, and you're just – just standing there and reading reports for Chiron!"

I blinked, confused. "Did you expect me to panic? What good would that be for anyone?"

She furiously wiped at a couple of tears that had fallen, refusing my gaze again. She was silent for a while, and then she said in a low, vulnerable voice, "You're just gonna leave like everyone else."

I didn't remember a time I'd heard Annabeth sounding so small. Suddenly, a part of all the craziness started to make sense. She had always known abandonment – her mother's godly indifference, her dad's inattention, her stepmother's insensitivity, Thalia's death and then oath to Artemis, Luke's betrayal… The list went on. I had the feeling she might fall apart if any other part of her life's chain broke.

"I won't," I spoke softly.

Annabeth snorted. "Right. You've just said you're gonna have your stupid soul reaped."

"We can't control that."

And I knew she hated that, not being in control of things.

Sighing, I reached out my arms and closed the small space between us, pulling her for a hug. Her arms unwrapped from around her own middle and she grabbed at my shirt. Her face buried itself in my shoulder, and I raised a hand to caress her stray curls, burying my nose on the top of her head. I fully wrapped my other arm around her waist, trying – and failing – to keep the butterflies in my stomach in check.

"When was the last time you slept properly?" I asked, gently. "Or ate a real meal? You're all muscle and bones, Annabeth." As I talked, I met the eye of a girl from Demeter, who was in the Strawberry Fields nearby. I silently pleaded with her to get the few campers and creatures that still lingered (at least, at a respectful distance) to go away. Fortunately, she seemed to get the message.

Annabeth shrugged. "Too much to worry about."

"Talk to me," I pleaded. "I can't help you if you don't."

She didn't answer, choosing, instead, to keep crying on my shoulder. I felt the tension leaving her body as she sagged against me, and I did my best to reassure her. I could tell she'd been bottling things up for a long time, and I felt a bit guilty for not checking how she was doing throughout the year. No one should have to hold their own like this.

"I thought something horrible would happen to you," Annabeth muttered against my shirt.

"Hm?"

"On Mt. St. Helens."

Every nervous termination in my body sent a little shock along my skin. "Oh."

"The line in my prophecy."

"Oh."

Her hands squeezed my shirt tighter, wrinkling it.

I remembered which line she was talking about. I had even confronted her about it, but once I'd discovered it meant she still… felt that way about Luke, I pushed it away from my mind. It just hurt too much. I didn't stop and ponder over, _Oh, but she thought it could have meant you, so that means…_ Unconsciously, yeah, I'd figured as much. Confronting those thoughts, though, that was a whole different story.

She took a shaky breath.

"And I think something horrible is gonna happen to you now," she finally continued.

"Hey," I tried for a light tone, "have you met me? I'm a bit hard to kill."

She huffed, "So was Achilles, Percy, and look how well that turned out."

"We can do this," I promised her, even though I wasn't sure myself. "We can't spend every hour worrying about dying. We just have to… fight. And look out for each other."

When she raised her head, our noses almost touched. I couldn't help studying her eyes from this proximity. The gray was darker in the corners of her irises, and I felt like I was looking into a storm. Water pooled from them, making them shinier and even more beautiful.

"I really hate you, Seaweed Brain," she spoke, barely over a whisper.

Honestly, I barely heard what she said. I felt like my body wasn't my body. There was something like a magnetic field pulling me in and a voice saying, _Don't be an idiot_. My soul only reentered my body when my lips pressed against hers.

I had lost my head when she'd kissed me on the volcano. It had been so unexpected and sudden that my sense of time and space had short-circuited, and I hadn't even been able to kiss her back or actually understand the feeling. Too soon she had been gone.

Now, I let myself _feel_. If I was really supposed to die in a few days, then it was really stupid of me to waste time arguing with her about things we couldn't change. Her lips were soft, her breath was warm, and her body fit against mine. More than that, my heart was beating all over the place, and my body shook with whatever strong emotion was cursing through my veins.

Annabeth pulled away slightly, and I noticed that it was because she couldn't breathe through her nose, since she'd been crying and it was probably clogged. Way to go, Percy.

But she rested her head on my shoulder again and wrapped her arms around my neck. I let myself just hold her, transmitting the same sentiment: stay here a moment, enjoy this moment of peace, I don't want to deal with the world for just a few more seconds.

I spotted from afar the campers starting to make their way to the Mess Hall, signalizing it was time for lunch. I felt Annabeth's ribs under my hands and forced myself to take a step back. "C'mon, you need to eat something."

She nodded, eyes on the ground, and wiped a few remaining tears. I leaned down and grabbed Chiron's reports, which luckily hadn't been blown away by the wind. When I turned back around, she was already looking at me. Her shoulders weren't tensed like before, but she still held herself with a certain insecurity.

"Hey," a brushed a hand over her elbow. "One day at a time, okay?"

Annabeth searched my eyes for something, and she must have found it, because the corners of her lips tilted up. I felt myself grinning back, which got a real smile from her. I had a strong urge to kiss her forehead and, with a breath, I did so, pulling back slowly.

"You're still the most annoying person I've met," Annabeth told me.

I kept grinning at her. "I know."


End file.
